Tag: travel

Should I move to Saudi Arabia?

A chance meeting by a public toilet and a few days later my grey cells whirring.

Stronsay
Stronsay

A rainy Sunday morning on Stronsay. About 350 people supposedly live on this straggly Northern Isle of Orkney, but I rarely saw them. The ‘all arms and legs’ shape of the island does mean that there are lots of lovely coves and sandy beaches, and it was above one of these (St Catherine’s Bay) that I parked up outside the community centre and waited for the patch of blue sky I could see in the distance to reach me. I sat with a mug of steaming coffee intending to read, but stared out of the windscreen instead at the mesmerising seascape of blues, greens, greys and frothy whites. As always, when I get the time to stare at the sea, or mountains, or any other nice, natural view, my mind started to wander and ideas began to form.

Two nights previously I’d pulled up at public toilets at the end of a track, by a beach, just outside the small village of Evie on the Orkney mainland’s northern coast. I planned to sleep there. Not long after I’d arrived a car pulled up. The lone woman looked at her maps, got out and checked out the beach, wandered round, basically doing all the things I was doing. After a short while of this, I decided to go for a walk along another track that seemed to follow the bay round. At the same time, the other woman also decided to go for a walk along the track, so we joined up.

Turned out Caitlin was also on holiday, travelling round in her car and sleeping in the back of it. Like me, when looking for somewhere to sleep, she hunted out quiet spots with a nice view and convenient loos.

We walked for further than we intended, getting excited when we unexpectedly came across a geological phenomenon of basically what are reformed rocks. Sand is made from either rocks or shells that have been ground down. Here the process has gone step further and shell sand has reformed itself back into rocks. Or not really ‘back’ into rocks as it was never rocks in the first place, but shells, as though it was jealous of the sand that had once been rocks and had wanted its own turn at being a rock. We clambered over the formation which still looked like sand, expecting the grains to move underfoot, but they didn’t; they were all stuck together, solid as a rock. Very weird.

sand turned to rock
Rock formed from shell sand

We continued along the track until we reached the far side of the bay and the Broch of Gurness. The broch stands in the middle of the site and has the ruins of a neolithic village around it. The village is made up of a series of one-roomed houses interlinked by corridors which would have been originally been roofed over for protection against the weather. The houses still have the remains of beds and dressers inside them, all made out of stone, Flintstones style. The most well-known example of this type of village is, of course, Skara Brae on the west coast, but this is pretty impressive too and the I think I preferred this one.

Broch of Gurness
Neolithic village at the Broch of Gurness
seal
The seal was still there next morning

The gate had a notice on it giving official opening hours but nothing was closed off so we wandered round having a good nosey and enjoying having the place to ourselves. Well, apart from two very friendly cats and an observant seal that is. I didn’t have my camera with me so went back the following morning to take photos, and although there were several tour groups looking round, there was still no warden.

Broch of Gurness
Broch of Gurness

During our walk we’d chatted about where we’re from, what we do, and so on. Turns out Caitlin, who’s from Angus, lives in Saudi Arabia. She’s just finished a year teaching English as a foreign language at the university in Riyadh and is waiting on her visa being renewed so she can go back for a second year.

My intentions when I became a teacher, were never to do it as a lifelong career choice. Life is far too short to spend it all doing the same thing. I always thought I’d be a teacher for five years – two in the UK getting experience and then three years in the Middle East, earning good money and getting to experience life and culture in a part of the world that really fascinates and interests me. But, the best laid plans and all that …

I’m about to go into my eighth year of teaching and I’m still in Manchester. I have thought about moving elsewhere – I got very tempted by a job in Skerries (in Shetland) a couple of years ago – but the thing that’s held me back has been my parents who are getting older, with all the issues that can entail, and since I moved back to Manchester eleven years ago, they’ve got so used to me being here, it would be quite a wrench for them to have me move away again.

I decided against the Skerries job because it was just too far and time-consuming to get ‘home’ easily and quickly. It would be impossible to pop home for a weekend and I really didn’t fancy spending all my school holidays in Manchester.

Sitting above the beach in Stronsay, thinking in the rain, my thoughts turned to Saudi Arabia and how feasible it would be for me to work there. Many Middle East countries are quite open to tourism and so it’s possible to visit and get an idea of the place. But Saudi Arabia doesn’t really do tourism. Apparently they’re tentatively exploring the idea but it’s really in its embryonic stages and will be a long time, if ever, before it really opens up. So the only way to really get to know and explore this birthplace of Islam and politically important country is to work there.

Caitlin told me that by the time her visa was sorted out last year it was October, and the academic year finishes in June, so that’s really only eight months I’d be away. And if anything serious did happen at home, it would be quicker to fly home from Saudi Arabia than it would be to get home from somewhere like Skerries which involves two ferries (including an overnight one) and a lot of driving. The more I thought about it the more things seemed to slip into place.

I’d like to develop my writing but living in a busy heavily populated UK city limits opportunities – far too many people all doing – or wanting to do- the same thing. Also I really struggle to find the time to keep up my blog, let alone anything else. Saudi, however, could be a completely different kettle of fish. Friends who have lived in expat communities and wanted to write, have tended to find more opportunities than there are here. Also, there isn’t that much written about Saudi Arabia compared to many other places. And if Saudi Arabia is really trying to develop its fledgling tourist industry, now could be the time to become a travel-writer based there. A good chance of write place, write time maybe?

I could also use Riyadh (or Jeddah) as a base to explore other parts of the Middle East, particularly the Gulf. Caitlin said it’s quite feasible to pop over to Dubai for a weekend. I could have the chance to get to know the various Emirates quite well and squeeze in a couple of visits to my teacher friend, Dawn, in Oman.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Antarctica and how I really need to do something about getting myself there. I don’t really want to go on a cruise – as well as being expensive I’d feel too much on the outside looking in. What I really want to do is go to live there for a while – at least six months and ideally for a full year. As I’m not a scientist that means applying for support type jobs, for instance, as a cook. But I know my chances would be really limited and as I get older, my age is going to go against me as well (maybe I’m already too old?).

Ideally I’d go as a writer/researcher, writing from an anthropological perspective. I always thought if I did a PhD it would be Middle East based research, but over the past few years I’ve been thinking more about how fascinating it would be to carry out research on an Antarctic base.  I’ve even researched universities that are involved in Antarctic research but I’ve not been able to get any leads for anthropological research.

If I started to establish myself as a writer and researcher in Saudi Arabia this may give me a way in to Antarctica. Long shot I know, but stranger things have been known to happen.

I’m feeling that coming across that talk on Antarctica in Lerwick and then running into Caitlin (outside a toilet at the end of a lonely track – really, what are the chances of that?) is all part of a universal nudge to try and get me back on track with my life plans and working towards achieving some of my goals. I could even give learning Arabic a pretty good shot whilst living in Saudi Arabia.

All this from sitting looking at a beach in the rain. I really should do it more often!

Stronsay
Stronsay

A talk on the Arctic and Antarctica

From East Africa to the Arctic and Antarctica. Including Shetland. Gavin Francis has led my idea of a dream life.

Last night I went along to Lerwick library to listen to Gavin Francis talk about his two books. I can’t believe I’d not heard of him before as I consider myself to be quite aware of all the travel writing books on the Arctic and Antarctica. I only knew about last night’s talk because of an article in the Shetland Times promoting the event. The article mentioned he’d started his Arctic journey in Unst which is another reason I’m surprised not to have come across him before as I’d thought I’d read all the travel writing books which mention my favourite island in my favourite archipelago.

Gavin Francis is a medical doctor who had spent some time working in East Africa and at the end of his stint he felt the need to go somewhere completely different to the heat and crowds of Africa. The Arctic is a bit different to Africa so this was where he headed using the Great Bear as a defining boundary (he visited places the constellation can be seen from) and concentrating on the European Arctic rather than the American.

He followed a route that led him from Shetland to the Faroes and into Iceland and Greenland, before exploring Spitzbergen and Scandinavian Lapland. To add extra interest to his journey (as though these places aren’t already interesting enough!) he followed routes documented by early writers. Shetland, for example, was written about over 2000 years ago by an early Greek traveller, Pytheas, who visited around the time the brochs were being built. As his journey went on he followed the writings of far more up-to-date and modern explorers e.g. the Vikings. 

Obviously he didn’t get cold enough in the Arctic because not long after he headed off to Antarctica to spend a year working as the resident doctor on British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Base. It took a while to get there on a boat that went via the Falklands, South Georgia and Bird Island. Once there it was all hands to the deck unloading two thousand drums of kerosene. A couple of weeks later, when the unloading was done, the ship left and it was time to settle in to life with just 13 other people.

About half the people on the base are scientists of various disciplines and the rest are support staff, such as the doctor, a chef, mechanics and engineers. He says he hasn’t gone into much detail about his role as doctor due to there being so few people it would be too easy for people to know who he was talking about and this would of course break medical confidentiality issues. Instead he talks about his time spent partaking in non-medical activities, such as trips out to visit the neighbours; a colony of emperor penguins. With the onset of 24 hour darkness there was plenty of time to observe the night skies and become familiar with constellations and blase with auroras. He also found time to write ‘True North’, his book based on his Arctic travels. Since returning home to Scotland he has written his second book; ‘Empire Antarctica’.

His talk last night, was divided into two half hour sessions, one for each book, with a 15 minute break between and a Q&A session at the end. The talk was engaging and interspersed with a few short readings from his own books and those of relevant others. He also passed around a few artefacts, such as his boots and gloves (big, bulky, heavy) and an emperor penguin egg (pointy, bumpy, slightly larger than a duck egg). The library was full, with people even sitting upstairs in what would have originally been the choir (it’s in an old church). Many of them were older and although there were a lot of locals present, there were tourists other than myself. I sat next to a Dutch lady who was in Lerwick with her husband on their yacht. They have sailed all over the world, including all the places Gavin spoke about. They funded their nomadic, floatational lifestyle by running a yacht business and the lady also wrote books and magazine articles on sailing and their travels.

Now I have even more ideas buzzing around inside my head. I love all the inspiration I get up here from all the amazing people I’m constantly meeting. I hope I continue to get ideas and inspiration from Orkney, though I’m sure I will. I leave on the ferry tonight.

Already thinking about next year …

Collecting ideas for next summer.

I might have only just started out on this year’s summer holiday but I’m already getting ideas for next year.

I’ve been following Helen Lloyd’s blog on her travels to Central Asia which have included getting the Trans-Siberian Express and going to Mongolia, and this has got me wondering if, in six weeks, I would have time to get the Trans-Siberian Express from Moscow to Beijing and the Trans-Mongolian Express for the return journey, whilst still having time to actually see things. If it’s possible I would get to tick two challenges off my list in one go.

Yesterday morning I was chatting to an Austrian women at the campsite in Yell. She has travelled all over Europe in her van and this includes Norway. She told me I shouldn’t be worried about Norway being expensive as the UK is the most expensive place she has travelled in. She said fuel is more like regular European prices than UK prices (we seem to pay in pounds what others pay in euros) and it’s easy to wild camp and many towns have council provided showers. Taking my van I’d be able to take a lot of my own food and so wouldn’t have to worry too much about food prices. So now I’m also thinking about Norway for next summer. Of course if I go to Norway I have to go to Hell and so that would also be a challenge ticked off my list.

Getting some inspiration

Finding inspiration in a chocolate factory and a brewery.

When I’m at school, I get so overwhelmed with the amount of things I need to do and the amount of my time that is taken up, and I’m so ‘in the moment’, life outside of school seemingly ceases to exist and all the plans, ideas and hopes I have come to a standstill. As soon as I take time off, get away, give myself chance to meet interesting people (actually, ordinary people like myself except they have done something with their dreams, instead of just filing them away) and before I know it, I’m filled with inspiration and ideas are buzzing inside my head and what’s even better, they all seem feasible.

Chocolate factory
Foord’s Chocolate Factory

Today I’ve had two inspiration boosts. Firstly, I visited Foord’s Chocolate Factory on Unst. This in itself is inspiring – an English couple started a connoisseur chocolate factory in buildings which are part of the old Saxa Vord complex. (Saxa Vord was built as an RAF base in the days of the cold war.) Not content with merely making delicious chocolates, they have made the most of both their product and their location by making themselves very attractive to tourists. It’s possible to wander down the corridor in the factory observing the chocolate making as it happens. There is a room with a display on the history and geography of chocolate and the chocolate making process. Another room taps into the historic associations of their location and has a big display on the RAF connections including uniforms and lots of photographs. At the front of the Chocolate factoryfactory is a cafe selling not only chocolate experiences, but also a range of savoury food. On an island with not many places to grab lunch (the hotel has a restaurant and two of the shops have cafe areas where you can get a cup of instant coffee, a bowl of soup or heat up a pie from the pie counter), and since the Northern Lights Cafe and Bistro closed down (please, somebody buy it and re-open it in exactly the way it was before), having a cafe here is a good way of attracting extra business.

Chocolate factory
Chocolate Experience

But this wasn’t the main source of my first bout of inspiration today. No. At the back of the factory is a room where they sell locally made crafts. Two years ago, on the day I was leaving Unst, I was at the Skibhoul shop and bakery stocking up on their wonderful, thick, chilli-flavoured oatcakes (special ingredient: sea water) and I spotted an old, but very well kept Morris Minor in the car park. I have a thing for Morris Minors having grown up with one. If I was in the position of being able to own a fleet of cars, and if I had the knowledge, time and ability to ‘do up’ and maintain old cars, I would definitely have one. Along with an old Landrover Defender and an ancient VW combi. But I’m not and I don’t. But that just means I’m even more fascinated when I see other people with them. As I left the shop a lady was unpacking her shopping into the Morris Minor. Of course I went over to admire her car and, as happens in places like Unst, we ended up chatting for quite a while.

Heather had recently moved to Unst from Nottingham having taken early retirement from her teaching job. She seemed disillusioned with the way teaching and schools in general were going, and so with redundancies and early retirements on offer, she jumped. Along with her husband, she’d bought a house in Westing on the west side of the island called ‘Da Peerie Haa’ – Shetlandic for ‘the small manor house’. When I met her she was about to leave on a long drive in her Morris Minor to the Isle of Wight. She was doing it for charity and referred to it as ‘Westing to Wight’ – sounds much better than John O’Groats to Land’s End. Being unsure as to whether or not the Morris Minor would make actually make it, her husband was driving a campervan as a back up vehicle. Although I read something about the trip in the Shetland Times that week, I never found out the end of the story. I don’t know if the Morris Minor made it or how the journey was.

Heather had told me to pop in next time I was in Unst, so I decided to take her at her word as I really wanted to know how the story ended. I drove out to her house yesterday but no-one seemed to be about and there was no sign of the Morris Minor. Was this a bad sign? Did it mean that the Morris Minor hadn’t made it and was now relegated to life on a scrap heap? Or did it mean that the dream retirement on Unst wasn’t so dreamy after all and they’d returned to the mainland (as in mainland UK and not mainland Shetland)? The lady in Skibhoul told me she was still living on the island though she didn’t know if she was at this moment in time. She also didn’t remember if the Morris Minor had made it to the Isle of Wight.

Today, in the craft room at the Foord’s Chocolate Factory, I looked round the handmade scarves, hats, gloves and so on, and was just about to leave when I spotted an interesting stand half hidden behind the door. The stand was displaying an array of colourful knitted bags, each one individual. The sign at the top said ‘Bags by Heather’ and there was a woodcut of her house which was labelled ‘Da Peerie Haa’. It had to be the same Heather, it had to be. I bought a very unusual bag for £10 and asked the man (Mr Foord?) if she was on the island at the moment. She’s not because she’s back in Nottingham for a wedding in which the Morris Minor is being used as a wedding car. So I know she’s still living here and I know the Morris Minor is still living here. I also know it made it to the Isle of Wight because Mr Foord told me so. What I don’t know is how the journey went. As she’s not due back until early August I’ll probably miss her (unless it’s very early August, as in tomorrow, aka August 1st).

So this was my first bout of inspiration today. She’s been living here for over two years, has started a little business and has completed her dream ‘expedition’.

Leaving the chocolate factory, I headed for the brewery (is this a dream island or what? Lightly inhabited, stunning views, amazing wildlife, fascinating history and geology, pretty much as isolated as you can get in the UK (apart from Foula and Fair Isle) and yet it has its own chocolate factory and its own brewery. And there’s talk of a distillery setting up too. Should it be renamed Paradise Island?).

The Valhalla Brewery, Shetland’s one and only, has moved since I was last here. Owner, Sonny Priest, has expanded from a barn outside his house into much bigger premises at Saxa Vord. He makes six beers and I always buy a selection to take home. I called in on the off-chance that he would now take card payments (he never did before) and I could stock up now to save coming back later. He doesn’t. But I was just in time to go on a tour (£4.50 including a bottle of beer of your choice at the end). It was interesting to see the workings and hear how the six beers are made with different combinations of the various grains. But his own story of how he came to own a brewery is what provided me with my second bout of inspiration for the day.

He left school at 15 with no qualifications and trained as a joiner. After several years of joinery he went to sea for three years on a North Sea trawler. This was followed by a job at Baltasound Airport (a tiny strip of runway with a few sheep grazing on it and not much else) and in the attached firehouse. Redundancy led him to to wondering what to do next with his life. He toyed briefly with the idea of opening a launderette, but following a drinking session with some of his soon to be ex-workmates, he found himself promising to start a brewery in order to keep them drinking. This may have been a drunken comment but the seed (of barley presumably?) had been sown and it germinated and lo and behold, he found himself in 1997 setting up a brewery and hiring a master brewer as he had no idea about brewing himself.

I’m planning my hostel and planning a sandwich bar / coffee shop, and all these other things and I keep on planning and not doing, as I feel I’m not ready; I don’t know enough; I don’t have the right skills; I need more money; and excuse after excuse. Here’s a guy who didn’t have a clue about the business he was starting, but jumped in, did what he needed to do to get it up and running, and learnt what he needed to know as he went along. I am most definitely inspired by this. Now, I only have to keep hold of all this inspiration once I’m back at school and getting bogged down in marking, planning and bureaucracy.

Groningen Museum

An exhibition on Nordic Art was a great way to start my visit to Groningen.

Arriving on the train from Amsterdam this morning I went straight to the Groningen Museum. This made sense as the museum is right in front of the station, lying on an island in the canal that runs in front of the station and circumambulates the old part of the city, effectively turning the whole of the old city into an island.

Groningen Train Station

It also made sense because I could leave my heavy bag in the cloakroom and so didn’t have to walk round with it for a few hours. I’m only in Groningen for 3 days and so only have my daypack but it’s still heavy to be lugging around with me all day. The hostel is on the far side of the town, only a 20 min walk from the station but still … and I couldn’t check in till after 3pm anyway.

It cost a hefty 13 euros to get into the museum and I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a museum year card at 49 euros but worked out I probably wouldn’t get my money’s worth. When I used to come to the Netherlands more often I always had a museum card and it was so much nicer not having to worry about the cost when going to museums.

I had no idea what to expect from the very modern multi-coloured building (a complete contrast to the old ornate train station opposite) so hoped I wasn’t to be disappointed. I wasn’t.

The current special exhibition is on Nordic Art and blew my mind. The colours! The light! The impact! I had never heard of any of the artists but now have a few new favourites.There were artists representing all five countries which are considered Nordic – Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I spent well over an hour walking from room to room trying to take it all in.

Yin Xiuzhen ‘Weapon’ 2003-2007

Another exhibition which caught my attention was the a display of weapons hanging from the ceiling of one of the rooms, all at different heights. Each ‘weapon’ had a kitchen knife tip but the hilt was made from old clothes; stretched jumpers and the like. It was all rather colourful and effective. Here’s the blurb:

Resembling darts that appear to be heading directly toward their target, these colourful objects look not only dangerous but also comical. On the one hand, the threat is reinforced by the knives that are attached to the spear-like objects, but the fact that these are primarily kitchen knives, in conjunction with the feature that they are made of second-hand clothes, emphasizes their domestic nature. The ‘weapons’ evoke the idea of TV masts, which have similar form and function all over the world. To Yin, they are the ultimate weapon. After all, they control the flow of information like gigantic filters.

How deep and meaningful is that?

I sat in the theatre for an hour watching a Michael Palin film about Danish artist Hammersvoi. I’d never come across this programme before let alone the artist so learnt quite a lot.

The rest of the museum I wasn’t so interested in. The regular collection, which was actually quite good, couldn’t excite me after the Nordic Art exhibition. I also found a basement room full of crockery. China displays never really interest me at the best of times and this one didn’t either. What I did like about it was the way it had been displayed. The glass cabinets were all shrouded by a maze of net curtains. It really was like a maze and got quite disorientating walking around trying to see everything and never knowing what was going to be behind the next curtain. In one space the exhibits were actually in the floor with a layer of glass over them. I think it was meant to be representative of how some of these exhibits have been ‘discovered’ but as there was no information it was difficult to be sure.

Finally I saw an exhibition of Russian women artists which at another time I probably would have really enjoyed but by this time I was all museum-ed out and had achey legs and an empty stomach. I retired to the restaurant for an expensive panini and a cup of coffee before wandering round town and finding my hostel.

Here are some of the amazing Nordic Art paintings I saw:

Learning to drive on the wrong side of the road

A week spent driving on the wrong side of road has led me a long way towards completing this challenge.

A couple of weeks ago I went a long way (literally and metaphorically) to achieving this goal.

I’d been asked by a friend if I’d like to spend half term visiting her new caravan in the South of France. The catch was that I’d share the driving and help move the contents of her old caravan in Normandy to the new one in Serignan Plage. I jumped at the chance. Not only did I get a very cheap holiday and got to see some new places, I also got to work on one of my challenges.

Margaret picked me up at about 1.30am after a busy last day at school on the Friday. Who needs sleep? We spent the night driving down to Portsmouth for the early morning ferry. I took my first turn at driving her car and was pleased to be able to get used to it whilst there wasn’t much traffic about and whilst still driving on this side of the road.

We boarded the ferry and went straight to our cabin to get a few hours sleep. Once we landed 5 or 6 hours later in Caen we had to drive for another hour or two to get to our hotel near the campsite where the old caravan had been. We had time for a look around Granville before going for dinner and getting to bed.

Next morning, after the what must be the world’s nicest croissants and baguette for breakfast we went to the lock-up where her stuff was stored. Once we’d succeeded in the challenge of getting the door unlocked (hitting the lock with a stone eventually worked) it took us a few hours to load up the car and roof-rack.

Then it was a VERY long drive down to the south coast. We took turns in driving and I was surprised by how quickly I got into it. It was a Sunday so was fairly quiet and we were mainly on the motorway, so all I really had to do was point the car in the right direction and drive, but even so. By the time we arrived I was feeling quite happy with myself.

During the week and on my last day when we drove to Spain so I could fly home from Girona airport I had a few more goes at driving and this time experienced traffic lights, roundabouts, traffic jams, and so on. As my last challenge I made sure it was my turn to drive as we drove over the Pyrenees and across the border into Spain.

I haven’t quite decided whether to tick this challenge off as complete yet. I specifically want not just to have a go at driving on the wrong side of the road, but to be able to say I can do it confidently. Although I felt fine driving over the week I was in France, I’m not sure I would be as confident if I suddenly had to do it again in a year’s time. I think I’d need some time to get used to it again. Also, I haven’t driven alone yet, and it’s very different not having a second pair of eyes to look out for potential hazards. So at the moment I’m thinking of leaving this one as an ‘in progess’ rather than considering it completed.

Toilets and showers in the Outer Hebrides

A list of toilets and shower facilities in the Outer Hebrides.

I thought the following might be useful for anyone planning a trip round the Outer Hebrides this summer in which they’re intending to wild camp most of the time. If you are staying in official accommodation your showering and toileting needs will be sorted for you, but if not then make a note of the info below. And if anyone has any more to add, please leave a note in the comments. The prices are from the summer of 2012 and are correct to the best of my memory.

Barra – toilets at the village hall in Castlebay (not open until about 9am and closed early evening) and also at the ferry terminal in Castlebay (but only open when the waiting room is open around the time of ferries). Showers in the sports centre in Castlebay (£1.05)

Vatersay – toilets in the village hall. Walk round the outside of the building to the left.

Eriskay – toilets and showers at the ferry port (24 hours, showers are £1)

South Uist – toilets and showers near the tourist office in Lochboisdale (showers £1)

Benbecula – toilets and showers in the sports centre (showers are £1.05. The centre is closed on Tuesdays)

North Uist – toilets by the harbour and also in the museum in Lochmaddy. Showers at the Lochmaddy Hotel but I don’t know the price.

Baleshare – no facilities

Berneray – toilets are at the ferry port (24hrs). Showers and toilets by the harbour about a mile from the ferry port (closed at 9pm, showers £1)

Harris – toilets at the ferry port in Leverburgh (24 hrs). Toilets and showers in the bus station in Tarbert, not sure of the opening hours. (Showers 50p)

Lewis – toilets and shower at the Kinloch Historical Centre in Laxay near Stornoway (24hrs, showers 50p), also at the sports centre in Stornoway (£1.05). There are also public toilets by the yacht harbour and car park but there is a charge and they are not open 24hrs. There are toilets in the ferry port where the ferries leave for Ullapool.

St Kilda – toilets at the back of the shop

Also the ferry from Oban to Barra has showers, but the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry doesn’t.

Oman and the wonder that is facebook

Facebook demonstrated its usefulness when I quickly planned a trip to Oman.

I was supposed to go to Oman in the February half term to visit a friend who moved there last summer. When I looked at flights the prices were way too high – if I could have gone a day earlier and come back a day later they would have been just over half the price I was being quoted. So I went to France and Spain instead and starting learning to drive on the wrong side of the road.

On Saturday I was chatting to said friend over facebook and she mentioned that October has nice weather and asked why don’t I consider going over in the October half term? A scan through various websites looking at flights and they all seemed too expensive. Damn school holidays. Why do they always have to be in the school holidays? In a last ditch attempt I looked at Emirates, fully expecting them to be the most expensive of all. Bargain! They had reasonably priced flights for the dates I was looking at. Of course I then assumed I’d got the dates wrong. A message on facebook asking for confirmation of our half term dates got me a couple of replies in under a minute! Satisfied I’d not confused the dates, and overjoyed at the efficiency of facebook, I went ahead and booked.

I have a 6 hour wait in Dubai airport on the way out, but I’m not too bothered about it. I’ve been told it’s a great airport and one that it’s easy to while away some time in. Although I’ve stayed practically next door to it before in the Dubai youth hostel, I’ve never actually been in the airport. It’ll be quite late at night, so I won’t bother working out plans to go out and do anything in Dubai, I’ll just have a full-on airport experience. On my return the wait is less than an hour an a half.

Once I get to Oman I’ll have a week to explore, relax and catch up with my old friends, Dawn and the sun.

Goose Fair

A pub crawl round pubs with caves, a fairground and mushy peas followed by a cock on a stick.

For the past 16 years, ever since my friends moved to Nottingham, I’ve been saying I must go to Goose Fair. Last weekend I finally got round to going.

Goose Fair is thought to have started in the 1200s and was originally a fair for traders, particularly those trading geese – thousands would be walked to Nottingham from Lincolnshire to be sold. These days it’s just a funfair with rides and food but because of its origins and because it is reputed to be the biggest fair in Europe it is both well-known and well-attended. Truancy rates in the local schools always soared on the Friday of the fair and so now the day is set aside as an inset day.

I went to the fair on Saturday evening after spending the afternoon sitting inside and outside various old Nottingham pubs. With the sun shining it was so nice to be able to sit outside and relax enjoying a good beer, a nice lunch and good conversation.

Outside Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem
Inside Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem

We started with lunch at a bar opposite the castle and then wandered down to ‘Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem‘ for 3 beers. Well, why have one when you can have three? The pub sells real ales and offers a ‘pick and mix’ of them – three half pints of beers of your choice served on a wooden platter. Of course it had to be done. The pub itself is interesting as it’s built into the caves. Nottingham is riddled with sandstone caves that until relatively recently people still lived and worked in. It’s possible to do a tour of the pub’s cellars but these have been withdrawn at the moment. I would be interested in going along on one when they start them up again as caves always interest me and caves that are utilised as modern day buildings interest me even more.

Next we went along to ‘The Royal Children’ which apparently got its name when the children of King James II’s daughter, Princess Anne, were entertained there back in the 1600s. Inside is a whalebone which used to hang above the door and was painted with the name of the pub. This dates to the time when whale oil became popular in oil lamps and the whale oil companies would use the bones as a means of advertising.

Finally we stopped off at ‘The Salutation’, another old and well-known pub. This seemed to be a bikers’ pub and had loud music and lots of men with leather and tattoos. It also sold real ale and I got quite a nice beer. It’s built over caves which are open to the public, though we didn’t go down them. (Got to leave myself a reason to go back!)

After this we made our way to Goose Fair and spent a few hours wandering around, trying out rides and food. I went on the big wheel to get a good view of the whole fair and was able to appreciate the size of it. I had hoped to see more of Nottingham but it was too dark by this time and the bright lights of the fair blotted out of the rest of the view.

I ate mushy peas with mint sauce and bought cocks on sticks as presents. Mushy peas are something I usually eat with chips, but here they were sold as a snack in their own right and the stalls had large bowls of mint sauce on their counters for customers to add and stir into their tubs of mushy peas.

The cocks on sticks are a tradition and have been made out of sweet rock for over 100 years by the same family. It took a while to find the stall as it’s only small but eventually we did. Originally they were sold as geese on sticks but at some point the name was changed to the snigger-inducing cocks on sticks by the classy ladies of Nottingham.

Finally we headed home. Goose Fair done, old pubs done, caves under pubs still to do.

Stornoway

I didn’t really take to Stornoway. It has too many weird things like trees and people.

I had no intention of arriving in Stornoway last night and when I did I didn’t like it very much. It has all kinds of unexpected things like trees and people and, wait for it, traffic lights and roundabouts.

I was expecting it to be more on the same scale as Lerwick or possibly Kirkwall, so to be driving along (it was a miserable rainy night and so I thought I might as well go for a short drive, but it ended up that I just kept going) the peaty, rocky moorland and suddenly run into an area with trees was rather a shock. There weren’t just one or two; it wasn’t a plantation of evergreens planted for business purposes; and it wasn’t just a patch of stumpy scrub masquerading as a wood. No, these were full on, full grown, tall trees of all different varieties and there were lots of them. 

Next it was the houses that struck me. There were lots of them and I wasn’t even in Stornoway yet. I was somewhere called Marybank which turned out to be a suburb of Stornoway. Yes, Stornoway has suburbs. Then suddenly there were cars everywhere and a set of traffic lights and another one and a one-way system and a roundabout and another one. Everyone seemed to be driving quite badly and I wondered if it was me, just not used to being among other vehicles. Then I wondered if they are driving badly, is it because they’re all out-of-towners who are as shocked as me by traffic lights and trees and don’t know how to handle it?

I drove around a bit, wasn’t impressed, then called at Tesco which had lots of empty shelves and was crowded with people who were manoeuvering in the aisles as badly as the drivers manoeuvre on the roads. Again I wondered if they were out-of-towners and not used to crowded supermarkets and the etiquette required to push a trolley in a socially acceptable manner. 

So I left. I drove back out and stopped at the war memorial in Kinloch to camp for the night. There was a picnic bench and a nice view and a public toilet (with a shower) just down the road at the Kinloch Historical Society in Laxey. it had stopped raining and I planned a nice evening cooking and sitting outside making use of the picnic bench. But then the midges got me and I ended up cooking in a hurry – quick stir of the pasta, prolonged swatting of the midges – and then securing myself in my van to eat and read. 

This morning looked nice, but as soon as I opened the van doors I was under midge attack again. I gave up any idea of a nice leisurely breakfast sitting at the picnic bench and drove down to the public toilet for a wash. There were no midges there so I made coffee and sat outside the toilets for a while. Not quite the leisurely breakfast with a view that I had envisioned. 

Once finished, I headed back to Stornoway. I thought I should give it another go and as it was Sunday and nothing is supposed to happen on a Sunday due to everyone’s extreme religiosity and strict adherence of the sabbath (something which the checkout girl in Tesco had confirmed for me last night) I thought I could wander round and take photos without any people in the way. 

I arrived back in town and parked by the waterfront and the public toilets (30p for the toilets and £1.50 for 3 hours parking during the week – parking and toilet charges are also something I didn’t expect, but at least being Sunday I didn’t have to pay for parking). After a quick walk round the town I still wasn’t impressed. A few interesting looking (closed) shops but mostly charity shops and everything seemed a bit grotty with lots of litter. I didn’t take many photos but instead headed across the bridge to the castle grounds to follow one of the walks in my walk book. 

The castle, known as Lews Castle, was built in the 1840s by the then owner of Lewis, James Matheson. It was later owned by Lord Leverhulme who gave the grounds to the townspeople in 1924. The castle itself ended up being used as the local college until new premises were built beside it. Currently the castle is covered in scaffolding and green netting and not much of it can be seen. No-one seems sure of what its future use will be but there has been discussion of a luxury hotel or museum. 

The grounds are extensive and full of those trees. Lots of paths wind their way through it and the walk I had was a four mile loop. I started on the walk a bit further in than the book said as I crossed the river leading into the harbour at the first bridge rather than the second. The tide was out and the river bed was dry and litter strewn so I didn’t feel any particular desperation to walk along more of it. 

Once the harbour was reached it got nicer with yachts and seabirds and the CalMac ferry getting ready to depart. This is the one I’ll be on this time next week. I followed the path along the harbour wall which was crumbling in parts. I passed the visitor centre (closed, including the toilets, on Sunday). It looked nice inside and the book said it was a good place to stop so I must come back here for lunch before I leave. Outside there were some interesting looking seating/play areas such as seats made out of barrels and an old boat, but some of them were rotten. 

As I got further round the harbour wall I could see the end of the bay and a lighthouse. The path climbed to a viewpoint before heading inland. At the viewpoint I was joined by a man who was waving his family off on the ferry. A born and bred Stornoway man he seemed to like his hometown and so I didn’t mention that so far I was unimpressed. 

I followed the path inland alongside the River Creed (appropriate for a Sunday) where another man I chatted to for a while told me it was possible to see salmon (I didn’t). At a footbridge I turned right. The book then instructed me to turn left at the first fork and right at the second. I came upon the first fork much sooner than expected but followed the instructions. I should have followed my instincts and not assumed that the first fork was the first fork as it wasn’t and I ended up off route. However, I was glad I did. I climbed quite high on what turned out to be a loop and came out at a wonderful viewpoint overlooking everything and everywhere. I could see all of Stornoway laid out before me and could see the coastline on the other side. This reassured me that it wasn’t as huge as I’d first thought and it actually looked really pretty from high up. The shining sun probably helped of course. 

As I sat there a man walked the other way and stopped to chat. We ended up chatting for quite a while. He’s originally from Durham and is a serious walker. He moved here eight years ago after his wife suggested it. They’d had several holidays here and liked it. Sadly, she was only able to enjoy her Lewisian life for under a year as she unexpectedly died from a heart attack. The gent has made his life here now though and plays the accordion at local pubs. He seemed quite lonely and I got the feeling it was through missing his wife rather than not getting to know people here. 

We went our separate ways and I found my way down to the path I’d originally started on by the harbour wall. The walk I was supposed to be doing would have taken me past a monument to James Matheson so my wrong turning meant I missed out on this. However, if I had followed the walk accurately I would have missed out on the amazing viewpoint. I’d much rather have my version of the walk than the book’s so I’m quite glad I went wrong. It might even be enough to change my view of Stornoway!